My Personal Birth Stories – Jack

Baby #3 – Jack – “I wouldn’t change anything about the three births I have experienced … each one taught me something about how amazing the female body is”

Our family was completed after the birth of our son Jack. My husband and I had discussed having a third child but putting the final touches on our family came sooner than anticipated. We had just emigrated to Australia from the UK and subsequently got pregnant within a week of arriving! The pregnancy progressed along smoothly thankfully; we were in a new country raising a 1 and 2 year old, having to make new friends and build a support network around ourselves in an environment that was unfamiliar to us. At least I knew how effective hypnobirthing could be!

In similar fashion to his big sisters Jack was overdue – only 8 days this time! – but this didn’t worry me as my previous experiences using hypnobirthing had left me feeling relaxed about dealing with any scenario presented to me. What did surprise me this time was the 48 hours of stop-start labour leading up to the birth. My two previous labours had only totalled approximately 18 hours collectively, so when I started contractions I just assumed the baby would be making an appearance soon. During the 48 hours leading up to his birth I continued to go about daily life which even included going out for a lovely kiddie-free lunch with my husband, well, it would have been a shame to waste the opportunity of them both being in day-care!

After two nights of going to bed thinking “this will be the night!” only to end up sleeping through and enjoying a good nights rest, I once again went to bed on the third evening. But this time I couldn’t drift off to sleep and my husband now tells me he knew this really was the night as there was something different about the way I was acting. Our lovely neighbour had offered to be on-call when I went into labour and we called her at about 11:30pm. She was on her way home from an event but offered for her sister-in-law who was at home to come to our house immediately. By this point I was having contractions every few minutes so I gladly accepted. She promptly arrived 5 minutes later and I began telling her to “make yourself at home, have a drink, its cold so feel free to put the heating on” … meanwhile my husband was trying to usher me into the car to go to the hospital! And it’s a good job he did – less than 45 minutes after arriving at hospital our baby boy was born! On our third attempt I had the birth I had always imagined – in the birthpool, in the middle of the night, quietly while everyone else was in bed!

I wouldn’t change anything about the three births I have experienced though. I have had three different birth experiences and each one taught me something about how amazing the female body is and that no matter how a baby decides to enter this world hypnobirthing can be useful before, during and after their arrival.